This month marks the 100th birthday of Poetry magazine. It was founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe.

Monroe was born in 1860. The daughter of a prominent Chicago lawyer, she was a lonely child, and devoured the books in her father’s library. She became determined to pursue a literary career.

Her first poem was published in 1888, and over the next two decades Monroe established herself as a poet. She also served as an art and drama critic for various newspapers. Besides volumes of verse, she wrote a memoir of her late brother-in-law, architect John Wellborn Root.

Writing poetry is not a lucrative profession. A hundred years ago things were even worse. The few publications that accepted verse didn’t pay much, if they paid anything at all. And even after the work was printed, the poet was often stalled off with those immortal words, “The check is in the mail.”

Aside from the Douglas Park (Pink Line) 'L', this area has been completely transformed. One clue to the location is the trolley bus. By 1969, only three trolley bus lines came within three miles of downtown.

The arrangement of the traffic lanes is another clue. The center lanes on this section of Roosevelt were originally under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Park District, with no commercial vehicles allowed. Trucks and streetcars (and later trolley buses) used the outer lanes.

Once again, we return to the central part of the city — within three miles of State and Madison. Almost everything in this picture has changed in the course of 43 years. However, there are some clues that may help you identify the site.

If you think you know the location, send in your guess as a comment. I'll post a contemporary photo tomorrow.

That was the problem for James Patrick O’Leary. In 1871, when Little Jimmy was two years old, fire broke out in the barn behind the family home on De Koven Street. The flames spread, and within two days, most of Chicago had burned down. Somehow the legend grew that Mrs. Catherine O’Leary’s cow had kicked over a lantern and started the whole disaster.

Well, what would you do if you were Little Jimmy O’Leary? You’d grow up into Big Jim O’Leary, the gambling king of the Stock Yards.

O’Leary started small time, running errands for local bookies. His major coup came in 1892. Heavyweight boxing champ John L. Sullivan was defending his title against James J. Corbett. O’Leary liked the challenger, and bet everything he had on Corbett at 4-to-1 or better. When Corbett won, Big Jim had his first stake.

He opened a “resort” at 4185 South Halsted Street, across from the main entrance to the Yards. The license said that O’Leary was operating a saloon, which included a bowling alley, billiard parlor and Turkish bath.

October 8th is the anniversary of the Chicago Fire of 1871. Today our topic is the 1937 feature film about our great conflagration—In Old Chicago.

The movie is a blockbuster. Twentieth Century Fox spent $1.8 million making In Old Chicago, a hefty price tag for the 1930s. Much of the budget went into the climactic fire scenes. Of course, the whole thing was filmed on a Hollywood sound stage or with miniatures, so the effects look primitive to modern eyes.

The studio did do its historical research. Many of the sets are based on old pictures from the actual fire. However, the screenplay itself is almost all fiction. About the only true facts are that a fire starts in the O’Leary barn, and Chicago burns down.

The movie opens in the 1850s, with the Irish O’Leary family on their way to the up-and-coming city of Chicago. Dad O’Leary is killed in an accident, so his widow Molly (Alice Brady) has to raise her three sons alone. She starts a laundry.

In 1930 the electric streetcar ruled Chicago. Though most people didn’t realize it, Chicago Surface Lines' old reliable red cars were already on their way out.

A streetcar line is basically an urban street railway, tied to tracks. That was good enough in the early years on the 20th Century. But now the automobile was becoming popular. If people were going to keep riding public transit, they needed more flexible service.

CSL tried to adapt. A rival company was already operating a few gasoline coaches on the city’s boulevards. CSL started its own bus lines. Since CSL had a heavy investment in electric power plants, it also introduced a bus that drew power from overhead wires, but was not tied to tracks — the trolley bus.

These two types of buses were used as extensions and supplements to existing CSL lines. The company remained committed to the streetcar.

First let’s get the terminology straight. We’re talking here about a local street railway, drawing power from overhead electric wires, by means of a trolley pole. Other cities called these vehicles “trolley cars.” In Chicago they were always known as “streetcars.”

In 1906 the last horse cars and cable cars were banished from the city’s streets. Meanwhile, the various privately-owned street railways had been consolidating. The final merger took place in 1914, with the creation of a company called Chicago Surface Lines.

CSL operated mainly within the Chicago city limits. A few of the lines crossed into the suburbs, and there was even an interstate route that extended into Hammond and Whiting. But the suburbs were still tiny, and CSL didn't bother with them.

“Modern” mass transit came to Chicago on October 2, 1890. On this day 122 years ago, an electric streetcar line began operating on the South Side.

Back in 1859, the city had gotten its first street railway. Rails were sunk in the middle of State Street, between Randolph and 12th Street (Roosevelt Road), and horses pulled iron-wheel carriages along the track at three miles-per-hour. It wasn’t any faster than walking, but why walk when you could ride?

The State Street horsecars proved popular, and the line was soon extended. Service was also added on other major streets.

Cable cars came to Chicago in 1882. First developed in San Francisco, the idea involved having a continuously-moving cable sunk in a slot between the tracks, pulling the car along with it.